Irreducibility of Polynomials with Square Coefficients over Finite Fields

Abstract: We study a random polynomial of degree $n$ over the finite field $\mathbb{F}_q$, where the coefficients are independent and identically distributed and uniformly chosen from the squares in $\mathbb{F}_q$. Our main result demonstrates that the likelihood of such a polynomial being irreducible approaches $1/n + O(q^{-1/2})$ as the field size $q$ grows infinitely large. The analysis we employ also applies to polynomials with coefficients selected from other specific sets.